Are gay bars still safe spaces? It’s a question echoing across queer communities, especially as acceptance broadens and the lines between straight and queer spaces begin to blur. In The Advocate, David Wallace, a professor of English at Long Beach State University, reflects on his first gay bar experience at The Blazing Saddle in Des Moines, Iowa, back in 1997. “I had no idea when I entered the Blazing Saddle… that I was not just entering my first gay bar. I was discovering the fraught history of gay bars at a relatively safe time.” His experience, like many others, was tinged with a sense of liberation—, here touching another man or receiving a compliment wasn’t criminal.
Wallace writes, “For the first time in my life, I was in a place where it was safe for a man to hit on me, and I liked it.” But fast forward to 2025, and the vibe has shifted. Increased queer acceptance has opened up more public spaces to LGBTQ people. Yet, paradoxically, it’s created a dilemma: Do gay bars still matter? Wallace recounts ringing in the New Year in West Hollywood with young newcomers, one of whom “just turned 21.” Their joy at finally entering queer spaces reminds us—someone new is always coming out. He draws from Gay Bar: Why We Went Out by Jeremy Atherton Lin, detailing how bars once relied on hidden entrances and no windows due to laws against serving homosexuals. These spaces were survival zones, not just nightlife destinations. Today, that history risks erasure. Wallace notes the frustration of straight women flocking to The Abbey, celebrating their “secondary gayness” while overlooking the decades of trauma tied to queer spaces.
He says, “The popularity of RuPaul’s Drag Race fills gay bars with mixed crowds… crashing the men’s room.” The article ends with a poignant reminder: “We still need gay bars as safe spaces for the newly out… and as oases from the daily press of heteronormativity.” As queer culture becomes mainstream, Wallace urges us to guard these spaces—not just for what they are today, but for what they’ve carried us through. What do you think?
